Tasmania's flowering giants: 'We will never see such trees again'

Many of Tasmania’s giant trees suffered in the summer fires of 2019 and now lie in ruins

In Australia’s island state of Tasmania, many of the world’s biggest flowering trees lie in ruins after this year’s bushfires.

The Arve Giant, a eucalyptus regnans (“king of the eucalypts”), had attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors in recent decades, but it succumbed in January.

Adventure photographer Steve Pearce recently photographed the collapsed giant. Before its fall, it was a contender for the world’s biggest flowering tree by volume at 360 cubic metres, which is roughly the equivalent volume of three Boeing 737-300s. “This tree was 87 metres tall. It had a circumference of 17.2 metres. Now it is just a crumpled mess,” said Pearce.

The world’s biggest and tallest trees are the softwood redwood trees of California. This year a 100.7-metre (Yellow meranti) flowering giant was discovered in the Borneo rainforests, topping the tallest of Tasmania’s trees by just 20cm.

Related: Almost a quarter of eucalypt trees found to be threatened with extinction

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/38AtRrf